“I wanted to be a part of the resistance”
Saturday, January 21 marked Donald Trump’s first official day as president of the United States. However, according to the freshly minted commander in chief, he doesn’t technically start work until Monday. As he said in an interview in early January,
“Day one—which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is gonna be Monday because I don’t want to be signing and get it mixed up with lots of celebration.”
Of course, that didn’t stop him from spending his Friday evening scaling back the Affordable Care Act. While he might be taking the rest of the weekend off, for the millions of Americans who took to the streets to oppose his presidency and policies, day one is today.
An estimated 500,000 participants took part in the March on Washington in D.C. In Los Angeles, organizers are estimating the number of participants to be nearly 750,000.
Nearly 600 sister marches also took place across the country in all 50 states and on seven continents (yes seven). There is, in fact, a march in Antarctica.
The editorial team at GOOD ventured out into our hometown here in LA to get a sense of why people wanted to take time out of their hectic lives to create signs, sew hats, and march on the streets.
“I wanted to be a part of the resistance,” Heidy, a local resident told GOOD while holding a sign reading “Undocumented Mujer.”
“Because we believe in democracy and because we need our leaders to be kind,” Kim said while standing proud next to her daughter, Gigi.
The march itself was subdued but strong, with women, men, and children all standing shoulder to shoulder, flooding the streets of downtown.
As for after the march, Kelli Soto, community and policy advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union in LA, shared her advice:
“There are a lot of ways that you can engage, depending on your capability and zest. You can start at the level of talking to friends and family, that’s really important. Educate yourself, that’s really important. Know what your rights are so you can tell other people. You can also contact congress, contact your local legislators and let them know what you believe in and what you’re going to stand for.”
Check out more of the sights from Los Angeles in our slideshow.
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